Objective: People who are open and curious orient their lives around an appreciation of novelty and a strong urge to explore, discover, and grow. Researchers have recently shown that being an open, curious person is linked to healthy social outcomes.
Method: To better understand the benefits (and liabilities) of being a curious person, we used a multimethod design of social behavior to assess the perspectives of multiple informants (including self, friends, and parents) and behavior coded from direct observations in unstructured social interactions.
Results: We found an impressive degree of convergence among self, friend, and parent reports of curiosity, and observer-rated behavioral correlates of curiosity. A curious personality was linked to a wide range of adaptive behaviors, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotional expressiveness, initiation of humor and playfulness, unconventional thinking, and a nondefensive, noncritical attitude.
Conclusions: This characterization of curious people provides insights into mechanisms underlying associated healthy social outcomes.
© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.